President Bush has said repeatedly that he would not insert himself into the presidential race, but that stance changed dramatically today during his trip to Israel. After likening Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Osama bin Laden, Bush compared Barack Obama to Nazi appeasers:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Obama himself quickly responded to the comparison, calling it a false attack and listing past presidents who didn't think that diplomacy was such a bad idea:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel."

"Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy -- to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

It was only yesterday that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued that United States needed to engage with Iran:

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."

UPDATE: What are the odds? Sen. Lieberman sides with Bush on this one:

"President Bush got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naÃ¯ve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and that holds that--if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers--they would cease to threaten us. It is critical to our national security that our commander-in-chief is able to distinguish between America's friends and America's enemies, and not confuse the two."

UPDATE: Obama's communication director has also weighed in on what he calls "cowboy diplomacy":

In a telephone interview on CNN just a few minutes ago, Robert Gibbs, the communications director for Senator Barack Obama, called Mr. Bush's remarks "astonishing" and an "unprecedented political attack on foreign soil."

So exactly how do you reason with people that strap on explosives and target civilians, or fly airliners into occupied buildings, or blow up ships, or blow up embasies, or behead reporters, or think Israel should be annihiliated, or.........you get the picture?

Which US president, Secretary of Defense, Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is actually fighting in the war in Iraq?

Geez, dimwitted Arnie wet himself...again.

Quote from Arnie:

Negoitiation implies reasoning.

So exactly how do you reason with people that strap on explosives and target civilians, or fly airliners into occupied buildings, or blow up ships, or blow up embasies, or behead reporters, or think Israel should be annihiliated, or.........you get the picture?

is Bush really this stupid? i think the answer is yes. his grandfather helped finance Hitler... doesn't he realize he will only expose this all over again? ... and it will have a new life in the blogosphere.

is Bush really this stupid? i think the answer is yes. his grandfather helped finance Hitler... doesn't he realize he will only expose this all over again? ... and it will have a new life in the blogosphere.

More...

Go ahead and talk about it. Then we can talk about some of the things obama's father and grandfather have done.

To paraphrase Obama

'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.'